On Stephenson County Board: Park the bike, pass the tofu

In one episode of the comedy series “Futurama,” the activist group Mankind for Ethical Animal Treatment (MEAT) is protesting a restaurant. Leela, the mutant space captain who is one of the main characters, tells them, “Animals eat other animals. It’s nature.”

In one episode of the comedy series “Futurama,” the activist group Mankind for Ethical Animal Treatment (MEAT) is protesting a restaurant. Leela, the mutant space captain who is one of the main characters, tells them, “Animals eat other animals. It’s nature.”

“No it isn’t,” MEAT’s leader responds haughtily. “We taught a lion to eat tofu!” We then see the lion. He’s scraggly, emaciated, miserable and coughs weakly.

That moment has come to mind often recently in response to some economic silliness.

The Wemstroms assert that the last thing we should do is open the two-lane bottleneck on Route 20, because any moment now we’ll all convert to bikes and tiny smart cars which make a Cooper Mini look roomy. Plus there will be buses, trains and other abundant public transport to move us across Utopia.

I expected a proposal for a regional network of solar-powered organic hemp ziplines. Or zeppelins. Zeppelins are cool.

Leftist utopianism only requires two things: Ignoring what people are and what people do. People don’t drive cars because sluggish government has failed to lead us to a new tomorrow. They drive them because they make their lives more pleasant, free, time-efficient and economically empowered. Plus, if you’ve tried to take a load of plywood home from Menard’s on the bus, you know why I own a Ford Explorer.

Moreover, the Wemstroms insist our mayor lobby vigorously for an Amtrak line. Never mind passenger service over this route has died out for lack of passengers repeatedly. Never mind that Anthony Haswell, “the father of Amtrak” has described it as a “sick, failed organization, which should be put out of its misery” because it has few riders and hemorrhages taxpayer dollars.

Government’s role, apparently, isn’t to build infrastructure consistent with the way commerce and travel actually occur. Government should push us into a preferred lifestyle with a pointy stick. You know, for freedom. In other words, the lion is going to eat tofu and bloody well like it.

It’s not just broad economic issues where some expect the king of the jungle to eat bean curds. Recently the board terminated our agreement with NIDA as our agent for the Mill Race Industrial Park. The Finance Committee was looking at options to advertise for new agents, including newspaper advertising. But wait! We were presented with an email from NIDA Director Dave Young recommending we contact a list of about a dozen industrial real estate brokers and ask for their help. Imagine the money we’d save putting stamps on a few envelopes instead of running newspaper ads, huzzah! The peasants prepared to rejoice.

Just one small problem: GVA Williams, the same topnotch worldwide broker that had been brought in by NIDA to market Mill Race. Most importantly, they were the folks who wrote to Stephenson County in late 2010 to say the park was “unable to compete effectively for tenants” “in its current state” and because there were 23 other rail-served parks in the region.

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So, after eight years of trying to make this site work as an industrial park, we’ll save the taxpayers money by going back to experts who say it can’t be sold as an industrial park and ask them to tell us how they will sell it as an industrial park?

One could describe this as “lather-rinse-repeat.” Or one could say after we decided our lion was malnourished, the National Association of Tofu Distributors gave us a list of the best guys to buy our tofu from in the future.